Lenovo is just one of the many PC makers bringing new designs to CES this week. Many of these will simply be refreshed or refined versions of the first round of Windows 8 computers—either convertible laptops or more traditional desktops and laptops with integrated touchscreens—but a few particularly interesting designs may yet rise above that fray.

One of these PCs is Lenovo's IdeaCentre Horizon 27, a 27-inch all-in-one desktop PC with an integrated battery and 1080p ten-point touchscreen. Lenovo is marketing the device as a "table PC." Sure, a kickstand can be unfolded to allow the computer to sit on a desk as would any all-in-one. But this PC can also be laid flat on a table for use by multiple people, or mounted on the pictured roller table for use while standing. (We've previously stated a touchscreen all-in-one makes the most sense ergonomically while positioned at about waist height on a standing person.)

Enlarge/ A roller table will change the Horizon into a standing workstation, when needed.

Lenovo

In concept the Horizon is quite similar to Sony's Tap 20, a smaller all-in-one that also included an integrated battery and foldable kickstand allowing it to be laid flat on a table. The Horizon's larger size will mean more people can gather around it at once (and the roller table may make it more useful for people who prefer to stand at their desks), but the two machines are definitely cut from the same cloth. Like the Tap 20, multiplayer touch-enabled games figure heavily into Lenovo's promotional material for the device.

The Horizon will be available in "early summer" for a price of "approximately" $1699. We don't yet know what the specifications of the base model will be, but Lenovo's promotional materials give us some indication of what to expect: the computer will be configurable with "up to" an Ivy Bridge-based Core-i7 processor (likely a quad-core chip), "up to" a 1TB hard drive and 8GB of RAM, and "up to" an NVIDA GeForce GT 620M graphics processor. These specifications aren't terribly impressive for the price (especially if the $1699 base model scales back on some of those "up to"s), but it should give this device enough oomph for its intended use.

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Andrew Cunningham
Andrew wrote and edited tech news and reviews at Ars Technica from 2012 to 2017, where he still occasionally freelances; he is currently a lead editor at Wirecutter. He also records a weekly book podcast called Overdue. Twitter@AndrewWrites

I have been waiting my whole life for board games on digital tables. Slather everything with RFID (or something) so that the table knows what physical pieces are where, and then when you buy a game you just buy some RFID cards (if it needs cards) and the rest loads into the table.

Why?

If you can eliminate the brunt of the rule managing, it opens up a lot of games to a far more casual audience and lets you play these games quicker. You can save the fucking game without trying to move the board off of your dinning room table.

A game like Battlestar Galactica is awesome, but it is a little rule heavy. The rules can confuse people and, worse, it just takes time to add stuff up, look up tables, and figure out results. Eliminate all of that, and the number of people willing to play such a game with me goes up dramatically. Hell, make it so that tablets and smart phones can be used for your "hand", and you can eliminate all physical components.

Don't get me wrong, there is some magic in playing with physical objects, but magic can screw off if it means I can easily gather a group to play a few board games.

THIS is the killer app. Make this thing able to do boardgames well and I wouldn't even flinch at a $2000 price tag.

Obviously Lenovo has figured out what all the phone manufacturers figured out! High end flag ship phones are fast approaching the size of small tablets, so why shouldn't small tablets fast approach the size of massive desktop monitors?

Seriously though, I would be fascinated to see what sort of creative uses people could come up with for this.

Lenovo might be able to sell this to companies but to normal consumers, they probably will not understand how this is any different from those new (well, not so new now) Internet TVs from Samsung, Sony et al.

When you post about price, you cannot compare this to a regular desktop. Obviously they are going to have a markup on it considering it is a custom machine with specific uses in mind. If you want a regular machine go buy that. This is not for the typical consumer.

Obviously Lenovo has figured out what all the phone manufacturers figured out! High end flag ship phones are fast approaching the size of small tablets, so why shouldn't small tablets fast approach the size of massive desktop monitors?

Seriously though, I would be fascinated to see what sort of creative uses people could come up with for this.

This isn't the first "giant tablet" proposition, lthough I think the previous one was an ARM based giant tablet, but Windows based desktop computer, so it switched to basically a different machine IIRC, while this would presumably be the full system.Battery must be pretty massive though for a 27" screen, given that it will probably be 40w of power from the screen, which means 100WHr battery or more, which is at least 2x your typical laptop.

I like the concept of this for a "family computer" (from tabletop gaming to moving from room to room for movie-watching to setting up with a bluetooth keyboard-and-mouse for the kids' homework)...but this is fully twice the price of the Vaio Tap 20, and I'm not convinced it's anywhere near twice the machine.

Despite the resolution, if this should have stylus support it would be very tempting.I really do hope the different manufacturers will start cranking out large stand-alone monitors with touch and stylus support soon though, so we can have both powerful computers and touch/stylus support without having to take out a mortgage for something like a Cintiq.

For me, there probably isnt much it can do YET, but its a sign of the future. No reason why your coffee table wont end up being an input device (eg: remote control) or information service (newsfeed, email), or even a communication device (link to security camera, skype, email).

As a first step, its obviously not going to do everything, but its still a first step. And like Sufinsil says, it could easily function as a smaller and more affordable microsoft surface, so whats to stop small businesses customising one for business/advertising uses?

I love the people whining about the resolution. Running my PC to my 82" Mitsubishi at this resolution looks great. So my problem is that it's too small to be a tabletop. If it were 42" it would make much more sense, approaching coffee table size which fills the board game dreams others mentioned.

Stylus support would be great, but how much would a Wacom digitizer of that size add to the price? Given average cost on a Cinteq I'd guess far too much. At 42" a basic capacitive stylus could be effective.

This is what we're seeing on Hawaii Five-0 and some other shows. Make it bigger, sell an optional rolling stand with a curved mount so it could be placed as a TV or rolled away from the wall as a table with adjustable height, and it might have a slightly more than niche appeal.

This would be PERFECT with Sonar X2a Producer Edition in my project studio. Judging by the pictures accompanying the latest touch enhanced update to Sonar I'm betting they had access to something like this machine. I've been waiting for years for something like this. I'd bet this would be excellent for composing music on Sibelius or Finale too. For a lot of music related software, whether it be creation or recording, the traditional mouse and keyboard is not as natural as just inputting and interacting by touching the screen. I can't wait for this machine to make the reviewer rounds to get some insight into how well it might perform in action.

I would have preferred 1900 x 1200 though like my primary desktop monitor and that's only 24 inches. 1900 x 1080 on my laptop's 17 inch monitor using Sonar is pretty easy to work with though so this in a touch setting might be actually good enough. I would imagine if the resolution was too high it might make touching some interfaces tougher as the touch items might be rather small at least using music software.

For single user applications you could have heaps of documents opened and scattered around the screen while you're working. Ideal if it was tilted.

For multiple use, you could have it horizontal, with four people in a meeting each one with their own documents showing up on their side of the table. Each side of the table could provide a user with a mini-desktop environment for them to use. Documents could be "flicked" to one another.

For video conferencing, the person at the other end could be simultaneously being shown to each participant at the table.

Imagine if it was a coffee table in the living room. Then looking up Wikipedia or IMDB could be easily done without having to distract movie or tv viewers. We do this with a tablet already but b/c it's so portable we are constantly looking for it. Board games would be apt in this setting.

Imagine if it was a dinner table then you could easily read the NY Times while eating breakfast.

In all cases, you'd need strong glass in case something heavy got dropped on it and AC power to drive such a big "screen."

You know how much a higher resolution would cost? Nobody would buy this if it cost 3000 bucks.1920x1080 is perfectly usable, just not good to the eye. I mean, TVs are shipped out with 1920x1080 at 60", because you don't sit 20" away from them. If the 27" is at waist height I doubt you'd even see the pixels.

A game like Battlestar Galactica is awesome, but it is a little rule heavy. The rules can confuse people and, worse, it just takes time to add stuff up, look up tables, and figure out results. Eliminate all of that, and the number of people willing to play such a game with me goes up dramatically. Hell, make it so that tablets and smart phones can be used for your "hand", and you can eliminate all physical components.

THIS is the killer app. Make this thing able to do boardgames well and I wouldn't even flinch at a $2000 price tag.

There's an app for that. One of the guys in my gaming group has a BSG app with the rules and stuff -- I can never remember what I need to roll to nuke the fracking cyclons.

What you're thinking of sounds like where D&D 4E was supposed to go....

If you want a gaming table for < $2k buy yourself a 60" TV from Amazon (USD 700ish) and a sheet of perspex/acrylic and then do some googling for "DIY touchscreen".

Which is all great and stuff, but then you need the software. For D&D there are already applications where the DM can reveal the map as play progresses (my artist DM uses Photoshop layers, but that's overkill IMO). In the 60" table we're all going to rush out and build, the DM would have the map on his/her laptop screen, with the 60" TV plugged in as a second screen).

For board games? Interesting... Settlers of Catan or Carcassonne would rock.

It would be the killer app -- with potential sales in the dozens.

EDIT: This looks useful http://www.nuigroup.com/touchlib/EDIT2: Google for PQ Labs G4 Overlay Touch Frame. DIY touch screen. Seems to do what we want for USD ~800. There must be a catch or all gaming groups would do this right?